A Haunted Romance (13 page)

Her knees didn’t seem to want to hold her anymore. She fell against him, unable to use her hands to make a soft landing. But he didn’t hurt. She nestled her head between his shoulder and his jaw, and he wrapped his arms around her and held her. She never thought of herself as being the kinky type. Cynical, jaded Cat, perhaps. But not herself. “Wow.”

She felt his jaw move, could hear his smile in his voice. “Glad it felt that way to you too.”

“Mmmm.” She closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of his strong arms and chest against her. She stopped feeling awkward about her hands. It didn’t do any good to want them elsewhere, anyway. She felt warm. Safe. Loved.

“Why were you on that roof?” he asked after a while.

She almost didn’t answer because she was feeling so sleepy. “Whistling sound. Got it. Some old piece of metal that got bent like a flute.”

“Hmm.”

She woke up to find herself untied, and a note on the dresser that he’d gone to town to get snacks for the “party”. She was half tempted to while away the day in bed, but that wouldn’t do. She got dressed and decided to unpack boxes.

She undid the plastic on the boxes from the attic and opened one up. Books. She grinned and set about shelving them, getting distracted now and then to read the covers. They’d belonged to Joann and Aunt Pat, presumably; they ran the gamut from classics to modern lesbian mysteries, from politics to religion. How many of them she’d keep, she didn’t know, but they filled the built-in bookcases that seemed to be a feature of almost every room. She busied herself with sorting through boxes, alternating between her stuff and Aunt Pat’s, until she heard the knock on the door. She ran downstairs, thinking it would be Trent.

The woman on her porch was young and dressed in tight black jeans and a plain black T-shirt. A pewter pentagram hung from a silver chain around her neck, but that was her only jewelry. She wore more makeup than Chelsea, but then, a lot of women did.

“Hi. I’m Andrea. You must be Chelsea?”

Chelsea nodded. “I am. Are you the woman Dalton Cornick said was coming? The medium?” Andrea didn’t fit Chelsea’s idea of what a medium should look like. She’d imagined an old lady, her back hunched, wearing a gaudy head scarf and brass jewelry.

“Pleased to meet you. Yes, I am. May I come in?”

Chelsea smiled. “Of course.” She stepped back for Andrea to come in.

“I understand you’ve had some trouble with ghosts?”

“Well, maybe.” Chelsea shrugged, thinking of the pipe she’d found. “There may be a rational explanation for it all.”

“Tell me about what sort of things you’ve experienced.”

Chelsea gave Andrea a rundown of all the odd things that had happened in the house, starting with the painting and leaving out only the escapade with the dildo.

“Is there a room the spirit seems to favor? Perhaps where the moans come from?”

“Yes,” Chelsea said, finding her tongue again. “I’ll show you.” She brought Andrea up the stairs and showed her the office.

Andrea looked around the room. “We’re going to need a table in here, so we can all sit down and form a circle around it. You said the key was on the dining room table? That’s at least evidence that the spirit doesn’t object to that one, so that would be ideal.”

“It’s pretty heavy.”

“Immovable?”

“No.”

“Good. Do you have chairs? As I understand it, it will be me, Dalton, you, and a man named Trenton. One more would be ideal. Is there anyone you might call on?”

Chelsea shook her head. “I don’t really know anyone in town.”

“We’ll ask Dalton to find someone, then, if you don’t mind. Someone open-minded.”

“Okay. One person will have to use a folding chair, though.”

Andrea nodded. “That will be fine. I’ve learned not to do these things with rolling chairs.”

“Ah,” Chelsea said, not understanding at all. “What’s wrong with rolling chairs?” Her own favorite chair was still back in the condo, and it had wheels. She thought she could move it in the Jetta, but it was going to be a pain.

“They roll. Your ghost has at least enough strength to open and close a door and lift a heavy painting. That’s more than enough to roll a chair down the stairs.”

“Oh.”

“It sounds to me like your spirit is showing some restraint, but most spirits that actually haunt a location, like a house, don’t want human company. The behavior may get more and more extreme.” Andrea opened her cell phone, and punched a few buttons. “Dalton? Could you get the extra person I asked you about earlier? I wanted to have it be someone Chelsea knew if that was possible, but it looks like I need to go with my backup plan.”

A few moments later, Andrea said, “Good,” and folded up her phone.

Between the two of them, they were able to get the table upstairs. Putting five chairs around it was easier; there had been four at the table, and the folding chair she’d been using at her desk made five. Andrea drew closed the curtains that covered the two windows in the room.

“I’ll get some things from my car,” Andrea said, once she was satisfied with the arrangement of the chairs.

Chelsea’s eyes narrowed. “What sort of things?”

Andrea smiled. “Scents, music, and a candle. We want to create a calming, welcoming place for our spirit. I’ll show you what I’m bringing in, if you like? There are no tricks. After I set up a diffuser and get some music going, I’ll be meditating and getting myself into a receptive state.”

Chelsea nodded.

“A little skepticism is a healthy thing, Chelsea. But let me know, and I’ll allay your concerns as best I can because this is more likely to give you the results you need to move on if you’re comfortable with what I’m doing.”

Move on? Is moving on what I’m after? I just want to know what’s happening.

True to her word, Andrea showed her the reed diffuser, a few bottles of essential oils, and a large boom box—the kind Chelsea remembered being called a ghetto blaster by her suburban friends. Maybe spirits weren’t ready for MP3 players. It all seemed pretty straightforward.

“I want to be alone in the room until all the guests are here,” Andrea told her, setting the boom box down beside one chair and putting the diffuser in the middle of the table. “Knock before you come in.”

Chelsea took the laptop—she didn’t like the idea of leaving it someplace she wasn’t supposed to disturb—and left Andrea alone to create her vibe, or whatever it was she was doing. She pushed aside a cutting board and set the laptop up on the kitchen counter, but she wasn’t sure she could concentrate on writing or even on Minerva’s novel. She’d thought of the séance as a fruitless attempt to find out what was going on, but her low expectations had given way to excitement and a bit of anxiety. A half hour later she hadn’t written a word, but the dishes were at least clean. There was a knock on the front door.

It was Trent. He held a couple of canvas shopping bags in one hand and was carrying an 18-by-24-inch sketchbook in the other. She let him set the bags down, gave him a hug, and breathed in the musky smell of him. It made her skin feel alive.

“I wanted to show you somethin’, if you have time,” he said.

Chelsea nodded. “I’ve at least until Dalton arrives. And he’s supposed to be bringing a friend.”

“Let’s go to the dining room table.”

Chelsea shook her head. “That’s upstairs. We’re going to use it for the séance. Andrea, that’s the medium, is having some sort of spiritual alone time up there, preparing things.”

“Kitchen counter then.”

Chelsea grinned. “Just cleaned it.”

They walked into the room. Chelsea had folded up the laptop but left it on the counter. One of Minerva’s old books sat lying open on it.

“That wasn’t there when—”

“What wasn’t?”

“The book. It wasn’t there just a few minutes ago.”

Trent peered at it. “So you weren’t reading it?”

“No!”

“A pretty spicy little passage,” he remarked.

Chelsea looked over his shoulder. The book was
The Way of a Man with a Maid
, and the scene described a woman bound against the wall, alternately whipped and fingered by the man. “Yes, it is. I wasn’t reading it.”

Trent raised an eyebrow. “Okay, Chelsea.” He picked up the book and walked back to the dining room. He placed it on a shelf there, still open to the same passage.

She got the distinct impression that he didn’t believe her. She followed him. “There was a scene very much like it in one of Minerva’s novels.
The Travails of Abigail
. I was reading that last night.” She’d show him she wasn’t afraid to admit she read things when she did.

“Similar how?”

“Well, the woman had her wrists tied, like so.” Chelsea put her hands behind over her head.

“Ah. Did you like that?”

Chelsea blushed. She was conscious of how her body was available to him, with her hands out of the way like that. “It was hot. She wanted to do everything he asked her to do, even though she hadn’t—”

“Hadn’t what?”

Chelsea’s cheeks felt red-hot. She put her hands down. “Er, buggery. First time.” That was the phrase Minerva had used, and it was a little less embarrassing than saying “she hadn’t ever been fucked in the ass.”

“And how about you?”

“Me?”

“Have you ever been,” he paused, choosing his word, “
taken
that way? Or had your hands tied like that?”

Chelsea shook her head, her heart beating faster. “No. When you tied them behind me, that was my first experience with any kind of bondage.”

He took her wrists in his, holding them above her head. Then he leaned down and kissed her deeply. Her lips melted against his. Her body came alive at his touch.

“Mmm,” he said when he released her. “I see you’re not totally averse to the idea.”

“We don’t have time for that right now.”

“I’ll take a rain check,” said Trent. “Anyway, I wanted to show you—”

There was a knock. Trent propped his sketchbook up sideways next to the open book before following her to the door.

It was Dalton with a young woman. She had straight blonde hair with dark roots indicating it hadn’t always been that shade. She had a pretty face, perfect complexion, and dark, smoldering eyes.

“Caroline,” said Trent. “Good to see you.”

Caroline flashed Trent a smile. “Good to see you too.” Chelsea felt a tinge of jealousy. Were the two of them still seeing each other, or did Caroline want Trent back? She turned her head too late to see Trent’s reaction.

Dalton, however, had a smug smile on his face. She wasn’t sure what sort of game he was playing, bringing his ex-girlfriend. For that matter, she wasn’t sure that she’d be still talking to a former boyfriend if he was as obsessive as Trent had said Dalton was.

“Good to see you, Chelsea,” said Dalton smoothly. “Chelsea, Caroline. Caroline, this is Chelsea.”

She shook Caroline’s hand, and the other woman clasped hers warmly. “Good to meet you, Chelsea. Welcome to Selby.” If Caroline was jealous of her relationship with Trent, it certainly didn’t show. The welcome was warm and sincere.

“Thank you.” She felt a bit embarrassed. “Welcome to my home.”

Dalton frowned slightly but only for a moment.

Chelsea gestured upward. “The medium, Andrea, is waiting for us upstairs. I’d offer drinks, but I’m not sure she wants us to have them up there. She seems to want everything just so.” She felt a little bad about not making use of the snacks Trent had bought, but leaving Andrea waiting didn’t seem like the right thing to do either.

“No problem, Chelsea,” said Caroline. No one argued. They all followed her up. She knocked on the door, and Andrea called for them to come in.

Was she really about to communicate with a ghost? Chelsea shuddered in spite of herself. In the dark room, lit by only a candle in a glass candleholder, she felt her skepticism melting away. The way the light played across Andrea’s face, any notion that she didn’t look enough like a medium vanished. But then, everyone looked a little spooky in the candlelight. The thick smell of lavender permeated the room. Soft, ethereal music drifted from the boom box.

“Sit down next to me, Chelsea.” Andrea’s eyes were fixed on the candle. “And direct the others to sit however you wish.”

She sat down at Andrea’s right and gave it a moment’s thought. She wasn’t going to sit Caroline between Dalton and Trent—she wasn’t sure if it was what she knew about their history or mere feminine jealousy. “Caroline, Trent, Dalton,” she said, gesturing the chairs in order, from the one just to Andrea’s left.

“Very good,” Andrea said. “Now let’s hold hands—no, I sense there’s some unresolved romantic tension in the room. We don’t want our issues interfering with the spirit. Hold the wrist of your neighbor to your right, and allow the neighbor to your left to take your wrist as we form a circle.”

Unresolved romantic tension. Does that mean me and Trent, or something to do with Caroline? Or how Dalton feels toward me?

Andrea took Chelsea’s wrist, pulling it close to her. As everyone else did as directed, Andrea continued. “Try to let your skepticism go—we’re so full of doubt—but don’t replace it with blind faith in what we do here. Just relax, let your mind empty a bit. If you know how to meditate, it’s very much like that. Just breathe in, breathe out, listen to the music, pay attention to your breathing.”

For a long minute there was silence.

“Trent, could you please blow out the candle?”

Trent blew, and the candle extinguished, a single spark floating toward Chelsea for a moment before it too winked out and they were in total darkness.

“Uh-oh,” said Andrea.

Chelsea hesitated, not sure if she was supposed to stay silent, but couldn’t help it. “What?”

“I’m going to sneeze.” Andrea let go of Chelsea’s wrist for a moment. “Ah-choo!” A moment later, she took Chelsea’s wrist in hand again. “Don’t worry,” Andrea said, “I sneezed into my elbow. Sorry about that.”

There was nervous laughter around the table.

Andrea spoke again. “Actually, it seems that may have helped everyone relax. Good. Take some breaths and just feel the moment. Whatever happens from now on, don’t let go of the circle. Even if you need to sneeze. We are fully in the moment now.”